“Vampires can’t be redeemed.”
“Then explain why they helped you both.”
“It was to their benefit.”
“Was it? They are outcasts now among their own kind.”
“Shut up, Cho.”
“Hunted. On the run. And they knew it would come to that when they decided to trust you and get Amy back.”
“I don’t care. They’re still vampires.”
“No, Nic. Shut up and listen. They’re friends, whether you admit it or not. If you let this stand between you and Fiona, you’ll just be letting the best thing that ever happened to you, to us, slip through your fingers. Get off your ass and go bring her back!”
Nic didn’t budge. He stared at the lizard. Put his head in his hands and scrubbed his scalp. When he looked up, he sighed.
“How could I have been so stupid?”
“
Don’t forget hardheaded, inflexible, and stubborn, while you’re at it
.” Cho flicked his tail and hissed just for emphasis.
“You love her. She loves you. I love her. She loves me. Don’t you get it? Nothing else matters! Not the Council of Twelve, not the Board of Elders, nothing but you and her. And me, of course.”
Nic turned, picked up the keys to the Jag, and headed out the door.
“Wait, Nic! You’re forgetting me! Nic?”
— • —
Fiona sat on the floor of her bathroom in her old, ratty pink bathrobe. A timer sat on the sink, running down the seconds, each tick echoing off the tiles and straight into her head. In just a moment, she’d find out the truth. The last week she’d been so tired she could barely get out of bed. Two days ago, she woke up, raced to the bathroom, and emptied her guts in the toilet.
Unprotected sex.
Those words screamed in her mind. At first, she wrote it off as a bug, until she’d tossed up her breakfast of dry toast on the second morning. It was the afternoon of the third day, and she was so damn tired she could barely drive herself to the pharmacy, and that was after she spent an hour throwing up. With no breakfast.
How could I have been so stupid?
She waited, needing the solidity of the floor and walls to support her, too tired to even balance on the edge of the tub. Besides, she needed the toilet free, just in case. The testing of the Emergency Pregnancy System was just to make it official. She already knew. In her heart and in her body, she knew.
The timer sounded. Fiona closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Pulling herself up on her knees, she reached into the sink, picked up the stick, and held it front of her eyes.
Pink
. She knew it would be.
Slumping back down on the floor, she sat holding the stick. So many thoughts raced through her mind she couldn’t keep them straight.
Despite everything, all her efforts, she was worse than her mother. She didn’t think it was possible. Just like good old Mom. A whore who gave it away, knocked up by a one-night stand.
No. She had to be fair to Nic and herself. She wasn’t
exactly
like her mom. Nic had not been a one-night stand. He’d been
the
one
, and she’d made the decision to leave him. This was her doing, all her fault. There was no one to blame but herself. And she had to face the consequences. Alone.
She was scared. Not the “ohmygodvampires” kind of scared, but the “whatthehellamIgoingtodo” kind. In a way, it was a bigger emotion, maybe because it wasn’t just a few moments of intense fear, but a lifetime fear.
Looking in the mirror, she wondered if this was how her mother had felt when she had found out she was pregnant. Had she been scared? Thrilled? Or like Fiona, a little of one and a lot of the other. Of course, there’s a big difference here. Mom had been only sixteen, uneducated, kicked out of her house, and Fiona was twenty-six, on her own, and financially independent.
Her mother had never spoken about her father. Fiona had just assumed it was because he was some ship in the night. She never had much to say about him except that he didn’t want them and left.
Fiona slumped back onto the floor as her eyes filled with tears. What if her mother had loved her father and been rejected by him? What would she have done, Fiona asked herself, if she’d been sixteen, in love with Nic, and he’d tossed her to the side like some used piece of tissue?
Do what she could to survive. Had her mother thought the same? Fiona knew when it all went wrong for her mom—the moment that bastard Gary came on the scene.
But it wasn’t the same for Fiona; she was in a better place in her life. Nic had told her he loved her, but he’d never asked her to marry him. And they never talked about what they would do if they just happened to make a mistake.
They’d only had sex a couple of times. Either she was really fertile or he was very potent. Well, if they were an accident waiting to happen, her mother and father must have been a train wreck.
She rubbed her tummy. True, it was an accident. They didn’t mean to make a baby. So how could she think this new life inside her was a mistake? Mistakes were to be erased. Wiped out. Destroyed.
Who was she kidding? She couldn’t even destroy Ivan and Annie, and they were vampires for Christ’s sake! How could she even think of destroying her baby? Fiona pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them.
I’m going to have a baby
. She bit her bottom lip and tried to keep from smiling.
Nic’s baby
. She had to tell him, didn’t she? She’d always hated those women who never told the men about their children. Never gave them the opportunity to participate or not, just took the decision from them, robbing them, in a sense.
She wouldn’t do that to Nic. He had to know; the only question was when. She needed some time to think about it and about how she was going to break it to him. She’d give them both a few months, and then she’d talk to him.
Telling him about the baby would be the hardest thing she’d done since she told him she didn’t love him.
Fiona left the bathroom. Ben and Jerry were calling her name.
— • —
“Who the hell is that?”
Fiona put her spoon and the carton of Chocolate Decadence ice cream down with a growl and dragged herself off the couch to answer the pounding on her door. She was pissed at being interrupted. Where was her sword?
Was it possible her hormones were raging so soon?
She pulled her pink bathrobe tighter around her, pushed the hair from her face, and padded to the door in three-day-old, lime green socks.
“All right, just a minute!” Forget the sword; she just might throttle the person on the other side of the door with her bare hands, except she was just too damn tired.
Oh yeah, her hormones were raging.
She undid the locks. “What do you want?” she grumbled as she pulled the door open.
Nic stood there, hand raised for another battery of knocks, and their eyes met.
“I’m not ready to talk to you. It’s too soon!” She tried to close the door on him, but Nic stuck his foot in the door, wedging it open.
“I don’t care. I have to tell you something, Fiona.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what you’re going to say, so don’t bother.”
“I can kick down the door, you know.”
She abandoned the door, flung herself on the couch, picked up the ice cream, and inspected what was left.
Nic stood in front of her, his arms folded and muscles tense. The dark scowl on his face might have scared someone else but not her.
Her gaze flicked up to him for a closer look. Compared to him, she looked good. Stubble covered his jaw, and there were dark circles under his eyes. A mixture of sweat and stale beer assailed her nostrils. At least she smelled better. Well, maybe.
“I know you lied about Ivan and Annie.”
“Cho told you? Figures. That rat.” Fiona winced and looked away.
“Yeah, he told me. I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out.” Nic snorted.
“Figure what out?” She dug around in the ice cream with her spoon, keeping her eyes on the near-empty carton.
“What happened between us. I have something to say to you, and you’re going to hear it. Put down that ice cream and listen to me.”
She tossed the carton and spoon on the table and crossed her arms. “Well, go ahead. Let me have it. I deserve it.” Sitting back, she closed her eyes and waited to hear the only man she had ever loved tell her how much he hated her for what she’d done to him.
“All right. You have this coming.” He paused and took a breath. “I love you, Fiona. And if we’re going to get married and work together, we can’t lie to each other, ever.”
Fiona opened her eyes and blinked back the tears stinging her eyes. “What did you say?” She looked at him, unbelieving.
Nic dropped to his knee and took her hand.
“Nic, what are you doing?” Had her heart stopped beating?
“Well, if I knelt in front of those old men to give them my oath, I can do it when I ask the woman I love to marry me. I love you, darlin’. I don’t care if you let them go, I don’t care if you let the Devil himself go. I can’t stop loving you. I can’t stop wanting you.” He kissed her hands. “Even in that horrible old robe.”
“But, Nic, I betrayed you. And I lied to you.
Twice.
I deliberately hurt you. How can you say you still love me?” Fiona’s tears ran down her cheeks. She didn’t deserve his love.
“Because I do. When it’s all said and done, it didn’t change the way I feel about you. Forget it. It was my fault, anyway. I was too stupid, too pigheaded, to see you were right. Marry me. I want you by my side, every day and every night.” He stood and pulled her to her feet.
She searched his face, his eyes, for any flicker of doubt, but she couldn’t find any. She leaned against him, melting into him as his arms enfolded her and pulled her tight to his chest. How could her heart stop beating in one moment and then leap for joy in the next?
Fiona blew a puff of breath to ruffle her bangs. It was time. Nic had to be told. She became very serious, and she took his hands in hers. Now for the deal breaker.
“Nic, we have to talk.” She bit her lip.
“I don’t like the sound of that.” He frowned.
“Nic. I’m pregnant.”
“Pregnant?” He grabbed her by the arms.
“Yeah.” He gazed over her head at the wall, so she continued, “I know this changes everything. If you want to take back your marriage proposal, I understand.” Waiting on him to speak was worse than waiting on the damn stick to turn pink.
“A baby?” He looked at her. “Our baby?”
“No, Nic. Me and the lizard.” She rolled her eyes and hit him on the arm. “Of course,
our
baby.” She wondered if this was sinking in at all. He could be so dense. Must be all the muscles.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” He looked at her, his dark eyes so serious she wondered if there was a wrong or right answer.
“Well, it’s too soon to tell. I’ll find out in a few more months.”
“A baby?” Nic’s eyes glazed over like a catfish stunned by a two-by-four.
Fiona spoke very slow and pronounced each word so he could understand. “Yes, a ba-by. I’m go-ing to have a ba-by.”
They just stared at each other. Fiona couldn’t stand it anymore. She slugged him in the arm.
“Say something, Nic! Anything! That you don’t want the baby. That you do. That you still love me, or you hate me. Just say something.”
“I love you. I want our baby. I want to marry you. Does that about cover it?” His grin was so big that it dissolved into laughter. He swept her up in his arms.
“I hope it’s a boy.” He kissed her.
“Not a girl?” She frowned.
“Okay, a girl. Just like you. I don’t really care, but I always pictured a son. If this is a girl, then maybe the next one will be a boy. Or the third.” Nic squeezed her to him, and her feet lost contact with the floor. “Hell, we could have twins for all I care. I should call Zeke, tell him the good news. I want him to be my best man.”
Throwing her arms around his neck, she kissed him.
“I love you, Nic, you big lug!”
“You didn’t answer me. Will you marry me?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you, Nicodemus.” She looked up as his mouth came down on hers to crush against her lips. The fire burning inside both of them ignited. Nic sat on the couch and pulled her into his lap, still kissing her lips, her eyes, her hair, her neck. He loosened the sash of her robe and slipped his hand inside to cup her breast.
“Promise me one thing?” He kissed his way down her throat.
“What?”
“You’ll get rid of this robe. And those socks.”
“Nic?” He continued to nuzzle her.
“Are you going to tell me your last name? I want to practice saying Mrs. Fiona…”
He laughed. “It’s Marks. Nicodemus Marks, at your service.” He touched his fingers to his forehead in a salute. Then he pulled her back into his arms to kiss her. “Fiona Marks. Sounds good.”
“I like it too. Nic?”
“Hmm?” More kisses. She was definitely sitting against something wonderfully long and hard.
“What will the Council of Twelve say about this?” She kissed his neck and edged lower.
“Congratulations?”
“It’s best wishes for the bride, congrats for the groom.”
“What about ‘mazel tov’?” His thumb brushed her nipple, and she wiggled against his erection.
“With those old guys, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“We have to tell Cho.” Fiona sat up.
“Cho can wait.” Nic stood and pulled her to her feet. “But I can’t.”
Nic picked Fiona up, tossed her over his shoulder, and headed down the hall.
She tapped him on the back. “Nic, you stink.”
He tapped her bottom. “Fiona, so do you.”
He stopped at her bedroom door and then backed up to the bathroom. Pushing open the door with his foot, he stepped inside and then lowered Fiona’s feet to the floor. He started removing his clothes as she began to pull her robe and socks off.
She turned on the water in the shower. Naked, they stepped in, and warm water splashed over their bodies. Fiona picked up the soap, began to lather it in her hands and then spread it all over Nic’s chest.